The wealth of Aliko Dangote, the president of the Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), has reached a new milestone, as the billionaire’s net worth hit the $30 billion mark on Friday.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Dangote’s net worth increased by $2.25 billion to $30.3 billion as at October 24.
The billionaire businessman moved up to the 75th position, making him the only African on the top 100 billionaires’ list.
The feat comes two weeks after Dangote Cement, a subsidiary of the Dangote Group, officially launched its operations in Attingué, an industrial area in Côte d’Ivoire.
According to a statement by the group, the plant, covering an area of 50 hectares, has a production capacity of 3 million tonnes of cement per year, making it one of the conglomerate’s largest facilities outside Nigeria.
While the plant expands the industrialist’s assets, back home, Dangote has been bullish in Nigeria’s oil industry in the last year, since his multibillion-dollar oil refinery became operational.
Dangote’s refinery was inaugurated in May 2023. The 650,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) plant sits on 2,635 hectares of land in the free zone area of Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
The facility began the production of diesel on January 12, 2024, but petrol production did not commence until September 3 of the same year, due to several factors, including crude supply challenges.
On October 22, the Dangote Group president said the refinery plans to list on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), selling 5 percent to 10 percent of its stake within the next year.
Dangote said the move would mirror the approach adopted for his local cement plant and Dangote Sugar Refinery.
He said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited could increase its stake in the refinery after reducing it to 7.2 per cent, but not until the next phase of the project’s growth is fully underway.
Also, the refinery announced plans to increase output to 1.4 million bpd, a scale that would surpass the world’s largest 1.36 million bpd refinery in Jamnagar, India.
Notwithstanding, the refinery’s recent expansionary moves have sent tremors across Nigeria’s downstream sector.
Dangote refinery had announced a nationwide fuel distribution scheme in June.
This followed the acquisition of 4,000 new compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered tankers to facilitate the plan.
However, the distribution programme has since been repelled by major industry players.
On June 16, the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) said the Dangote refinery’s forward integration adoption could lead to a monopoly in disguise, also posing a significant job loss threat to Nigeria.
